Sometimes, you can figure out what something is or does just by puzzling over its name. The term application server fits that bill. Technically and non-technically speaking, an application server is a server that is designed for or dedicated to running specific applications. At its most basic, an application server might be used to run one application. If that application is the one that keeps your company network going and is, therefore, a massive application, it might take up the entire RAM and ROM requirement of one server.

Another possibility is that an application server is used to run certain kinds of applications. For example, your company might have several word processing or spreadsheet or desktop publishing programs, and all of those applications might reside on one type of server. You and everyone who needs to access those programs would then log on to the Desktop Publishing Server, for example, to use InDesign or Quark XPress or Pages or any other kind of design program that your company might recommend and have on hand.

Another kind of application server is one that runs an operating system. This is more old-fashioned, but it is still used. Certain computers, more commonly called terminals, connect to an application server in order to access basic functions. An excellent example of this is the Microsoft NT server.

Like ants and bees that have specific roles in life, application servers have specific parts to play in the overall anthill or beehive of your company. As with many things computer-related, there is a more complicated example. Oracle, one of the main server developers in the world today, has come out with a J2EE (Java Platform Enterprise Edition) server. A huge number of companies worldwide use the J2EE server, which is able to run very powerful applications that can be accessed by multiple computers connected to that server on a network, and so the term application server has come to be somewhat synonymous with the J2EE server.

What it all boils down to, though, is the computer world's propensity to designate certain resources to perform certain actions. In the same way that you might use a word processing program to write a paper but a photo manipulation program to touch up those vacation photos that you took, tech departments use application servers to compartmentalize the way that a company's multiple computers do certain things. And if they're doing their job well, you will hardly be aware that such activity is going on.